Essar oil reports 10 per cent rise in oil throughput

New Delhi: Essar Oil, which is in the process of being acquired by Russia's Rosneft, today reported 10 per cent rise in throughput and 67 per cent jump in the number of petrol pumps.

The company's 20 million tonne a year refinery at Vadinar in Gujarat processed 20.95 MT crude oil in the fiscal year that ended on March 31 (2016-17), a 10 per cent increase over the previous financial year.

Its network of petrol pumps expanded by 67 per cent taking the number to 3,499. Another 2,631 are at various stages of implementation. Retail sales volume soared 75 per cent to 2.8 million kilolitres, Essar Oil said in a statement. Vadinar refinery had in 2015-16 fiscal processed 19.10 MT crude oil.

"Over the years, Essar Oil has invested in a series of upgrades and modifications at the 20 million tonne Vadinar refinery to maximise margins," the statement said.

In October 2015, the refinery completed a 28-day planned shutdown - a period when the VGO-HT unit was converted into a mild hydrocracker unit to enable the refinery to convert the entire VGO (Vacuum Gas Oil) into higher margin products.

The company also modified its crude blend window to enable the refinery to process higher volumes of ultra-heavy and high acidic crudes. During 2016-17, the refinery converted most of its VGO into gas-oil and other value-added products.

The crude API also improved to 23.3, which helped in overall reduction in crude cost, thus enhancing refinery margins.

Lalit Kumar Gupta, MD and CEO, Essar Oil, said: "This year, we achieved the highest ever throughput since the commencement of commercial operations at the Vadinar Refinery in May 2008. Our retail growth was quite remarkable."

Essar Oil is the largest private fuel retailer in the country. State-owned oil companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL own about 92 per cent of the nearly 58,000 petrol pumps in the country. Rosneft is acquiring Essar Oil in a USD 12.9 billion deal which is likely to close sometime this month.